Cheesman created Ensete arnoldianum as a new combination (number 13 out of 25) in a brief note in his 1947 paper
reviving the genus Ensete. Cheesman revived one and created 24 new Ensete species in that paper but acknowledged that field study might reveal synonymy. Baker and
Simmonds' 1953 review of the genus Ensete in Africa radically reduced the number of species either reducing or rejecting most of Cheesman's African Ensete. Baker and Simmonds' original paper reduced Ensete arnoldianum to a synonym of Ensete edule. However, when it was noticed that, via Musa ventricosa, Ensete
ventricosum took priority over Ensete edule by three years a substantial correction appeared in the following issue of Kew Bulletin that reduced Ensete arnoldianum
to a synonym of Ensete ventricosum (please refer to R. E. D. Baker & N. W. Simmonds, Kew Bulletin 8 (4): 574 (1953)).

Under Ensete arnoldianum Cheesman 1947a comments:

"Musa hybrida Gillet in L'Agronomie tropicale (1909), 29, appears to have been a hybrid between E. arnoldianum [= E. ventricosum] and E. gilletii. I have not seen the original description
but take the information from De Wildeman, [presumably Bull. Soc. Etud. Colon. Brux. 8 (1901), 339.]
who did not know how the hybrid was obtained. The plant is of some interest as it is the only recorded hybrid in the genus Ensete, but in view of the scanty information
about it I have not thought a new combination necessary for it under that genus".

Type: J. Gillet no. 1850, région de Dembo, Congo 1901; in Herb. Brux.

Images:

There are three external images of Gillet's type of Musa arnoldiana at the Aluka
website http://www.aluka.org.